


We Hear That Sound (We Go Right Down)

by bornfreeonebias



Category: Witchblade - All Media Types, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Blood and Violence, Broken Engagement, Broken Love, Humans as weapons, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Machines, Mild Gore, Mild Sexual Content, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Supernatural Elements, i hope you're ready for all this blood and violence, tae is going to be naked in every fight scene, this is a very specific au, witchblade!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 23:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13087998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bornfreeonebias/pseuds/bornfreeonebias
Summary: Taehyung figures walking away from the town he should have been killed in is the best way to find closure, and maybe a better job. His past doesn't follow him, and it's all he can ask for. There's just one thing he can't run away from.Taehyung is the son of a witchblade, and he likes killing. Being a human weapon bans remorse from his mind, up until Jimin finds him bathed in blood.





	We Hear That Sound (We Go Right Down)

Taehyung had been lost in the rubble. 

His entire apartment building collapsed with the force of the earthquake, with he and others standing on the top praying for a helicopter to see them through the rain. All the other families had either evacuated, or were in their homes praying for a miracle like he was. The dark sky rumbled with thunder, streaks of lightning moments before another shockwave hit. 

The building collapsed from the top down. Windows shattering, steel beams cracking under the weight. Taehyung was at the beginning of the splinter in the center of the building, and he fell straight down when the concrete split like a gaping, monstrous mouth. His body hit floor after floor, and he screamed knowing he would inevitably die. There was so much pain, and so much fear. 

He remembered one thing before the weight of an apartment complex collapsed on top of him: his entire left arm was burning, and lightning was striking straight into him.

Then the world evaporated, and Kim Taehyung was no more.

 

“I still can’t believe you actually won the fight,” Jimin smacks him on the shoulder and smiles like he can’t believe they’re standing here in the waiting room of the local martial arts fighting arena. Officially, the place is used for tournaments. Unofficially, every Thursday is fight night, and anyone can step into the ring with any kind of training. 

Taehyung just so happens to be a fighter, these days. After the disaster.

“You have zero faith in me,” Taehyung accuses and Jungkook comes racing in, wide-eyed and breathless with a huge handful of bills.

“You have no idea how much we scored!” he yells, jumping on his toes and waving the cash around like a kid, “No one thought you would win, everyone bet on the steroid junkie and now we’re loaded!”

Jimin rolls his eyes, doubtful, and takes the stack from Jungkook. When he flips through the pile, he gasps. 

“Who the hell comes to these fights with this kind of money?” Jimin laughs, and Taehyung adjusts his palm wraps. His arm kind of itches, and the spot on his ribs where the steroid junkie landed a perfect punch throbs with each breath. He’s still high on the adrenaline, and he ponders taking up another fight.

“Do you think they’ll let me fight again?” Taehyung asks, and Jungkook's mouth drops open. 

“Look man, we get that you won, but your face is still a mess. Can you even see?” Jungkook grabs Taehyung by the chin and pulls his head up to the light. At this particular angle, Taehyung has to agree. He can’t see anything but colors out of his right eye.

Still, he wants to do it again. When he trained, energy came from his mind and motivations. In the ring, energy pumped into his system like opium. It made him believe he could jump a mile into the air, and float back down. Destructive. Fearless.

“If I can take a building, I can take another fight.”

Jimin, busying himself counting their profits, goes still. Jungkook’s face darkens.

“Taehyung, don’t joke about that,” Jimin whispers, and Taehyung stands with a quick hop. He could tear through cement with his nails right now.

“You didn’t lose anything in the earthquake, Jimin. Stop being upset about it.”

He doesn’t say the truth, ‘You lost nothing, Jimin, and I lost everything.'

Jimin hears it anyways, and bites his tongue to stop himself from arguing back. Taehyung's heart is set on the violence outside these walls. Jimin isn't what Taehyung needs anymore.

Taehyung spins the ring on his left index finger on impulse while asking the men in suits by the announcer’s podium, ‘I want another fight. When’s the next open slot?’

Taehyung wins two more fights and collapses on his third time in the ring, losing by default. He walks away with money he hasn't a clue how to spend the next morning. Jimin and Jungkook don’t resurface, and Taehyung walks himself to the hospital wondering if they stayed long enough to watch him finally collapse.

The walk light turns green. His arm kind of itches.

 

“Did you think that maybe you should have eaten before you started working?” Seokjin chides, his hand on the back of Taehyung’s damp neck. The skin there is burning hot.

“You know I never eat before my shift starts,” Taehyung breathes out, hands trembling. Seokjin scoffs.

“Yeah, I know. Because you eat while you’re working. I should have you fired, honestly,” Taehyung grins up at Seokjin and tries to laugh, but it comes out tired. Sick. Seokjin’s smile falls.

“Maybe we should send you home for today,” he says, and Taehyung's eyes bulge, “You really shouldn’t work with a fever.”

“I’m okay, I swear,” Taehyung pushes himself up and turns, “I’m fine to finish the rest of my shift. Only five hours to go, I can make it, I swear I can.” 

He knows he doesn’t look convincing, but this is his only steady job. Money is always on low supply, and losing a shift is something Taehyung could never afford. Seokjin must understand that in some psychic way because he backs off, shoulders slumped. It makes Taehyung want to apologize for whatever he’s done wrong. He doesn’t, choosing to smile and say thank you instead.

“If you make me pick you up off the kitchen floor, you’re going home to rest. You work tomorrow as well, remember? I need you in better shape. That laugh keeps the customers coming back, you know.”

Seokjin pivots on his heels and exits the back room, still going on about Taehyung and all the trouble he causes, when Taehyung’s legs give out. He stumbles into the wall first before sliding down to the floor, panting like a dog trying to escape the heat making his head spin.

He might have to go to the employee restroom, lock the door, and vomit his guts out but at least Seokjin allowed him to stay. He needs the hours. After the earthquake, Taehyung lost everything. His home, his belongings, his savings. After his release from the hospital, Jimin allowed Taehyung to stay at his apartment until he found his bearings again. He doesn't know if he would be alive today, were it not for Jimin.

Now, Taehyung has his own apartment but it’s more expensive than his old place. Picking up hours when he can is all Taehyung can do to get by anymore, never mind the fact that he doesn’t have a bed. He needs food and a place to live without existing as a burden to someone else. 

So this whole feeling sick and overheating with fever thing isn’t going to cut it. Taehyung pulls himself up on a chair, allowing himself a minute more of misery, before standing and walking back out to the tables. Seokjin is in the kitchen preparing plates, and Taehyung slides into the lobby to continue where he left off. If his eyes are watery and his hands shake when he carries plates, at least no one points it out.

He does vomit in the bathroom, after a hour or so. It tastes like death in his throat and makes his nose burn, but he’s helpless to do anything other than quickly get back to work. After closing the store down, Seokjin has to drive Taehyung home because he can’t walk anymore.

 

“What do you think you’re doing,” Jimin’s voice is clipped, his frustration with Taehyung clear through the phone, “getting sick, then getting even more sick, and not doing anything about it?”

“I just have a cold or something, it’s fine,” Taehyung holds the phone between his ear and shoulder, busying himself with the can of soup he can't open, “Not like I’m dying, or anything. Tried that already, not my kind of party.”

“Taehyung,” Jimin growls, bitter that they keep coming back to this, “Stop joking about that.”

“Why not?” he stabs the top of the can with his apartment key, unable to afford a can opener, and does a little happy dance when the key breaks through the aluminum, “I’m still alive. You’re always so sensitive about it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Because they don’t talk about the regret, or who was to blame. Not anymore.

Jimin huffs and goes quiet, and Taehyung digs the key under the metal to bend the seal away. It doesn’t work.

“I’m coming over,” Taehyung hears, and nearly drops the can, “Prepare your ass.”

“Wait, no, you can’t come over here, I don’t have anything, Jimin-” but the line goes dead. Taehyung scowls and tosses the phone away, muttering sourly to himself, “At least bring a fucking can opener.”

Twenty-three minutes later, Taehyung hears the destined knocking on his door. He does a pitiful sweep of his apartment, regarding all the empty space and frowning. Of course Jimin would want to visit uninvited: they’ve been close for years now. But when Taehyung looks at his current financial situation, he's ashamed by how pitiful it is.

It makes him want to throw in the towel just as much as it drives him to work harder, and the mental strain is exhausting. Instead of dwelling in his thoughts, he unlocks the door and turns back around to force his dinner out of its shell. Jimin steps inside with a pout on his face.

“Asshole. Don’t hang up on people when they’re talking to you,” Taehyung picks up the can and doesn’t look at Jimin, afraid of the expression on his face. Afraid of the judgement.

Jimin sighs. “I wanted to come see you. You look like hell, Taetae.”

Something clatters onto the counter and startles them both, and Taehyung looks down to see he’s dropped the keys and the can. A small puddle of soup escapes before he manages to set it up right, and his head swims.

“You know I’m not your Taetae anymore, Jimin.”

Taehyung still can’t look Jimin in the eye, too afraid of the longing there. Too afraid Jimin will see the truth in his eyes as well. 

“I know,” they both stare at the spill on the counter. Jimin’s chest hurts.

“I know, Taehyung.”

They both clean the mess in silence, the golden band on Jimin’s ring finger reflecting light in Taehyung’s eyes like a knife.

The only ring Taehyung wears anymore is a silver loop with a red stone on his left index, and sometimes his arm kind of itches.

 

The fever runs on for days. The thermometer reads a number Taehyung refuses to acknowledge and his sheets smell like sickness and sweat, but he keeps his head up. Taehyung works out his shifts down at the café. He works out his shift in city hall sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms. He survives.

Anytime he’s asked if he’s okay, he says he has a headache: could they spare him any pain medicine?

For a while it all works nicely. He becomes adjusted to the grogginess, to the soreness in his bones. Every so often he manages to stay awake past eight to play on his small phone, which remains a feat. 

The time his fever becomes a problem is during an afternoon rush at the café. He’s taking orders and running this way, that way, when something warm drips down his cheeks. Over his mouth. 

Into his lips. 

“What the fuck- Taehyung, you’re bleeding!”

He can taste it. It’s a nasty metallic burst over his dulled senses that ignites fear deep inside him. So much so, Taehyung doesn’t remember shivering from his shoulders to his knees before collapsing right where he stands. 

Over six hours later, Taehyung wakes up. Jimin's pacing silhouette is the first thing he sees. 

Of course. 

“Your brain started bleeding. How long were you going to let the fever cook your organs before you went to the hospital? Days? Weeks? Or until you bled to death?”

Taehyung can feel the needle in his arm pumping fluids and medicine into his system. He’s absolutely freezing. “I had work, Jimin.”

His voice is rough, unused and rigid. It hurts to speak. 

“Very fucking clever, Kim Taehyung. Working yourself to death. Always had such a sense of _duty._ ”

“Jimin-"

“Shut up!” Jimin stands, throwing the magazine Taehyung didn’t realize he had across the room. A shadow travels past the door, but they remain undisturbed. 

That fire in Jimin’s eyes is familiar. It was there when Taehyung found Jimin stripped and bleeding by the river the first day they met. It was there when their first apartment caught up in flames, but thankfully only took the kitchen and dining room. It was there at a playground the time someone smacked their child so hard the poor baby hit the ground. 

That bastard could never have seen Jimin coming. 

That fire is here now. 

“Don’t you dare lecture me about work. Let me lecture you on every single stupid fucking decision you’ve made in the past six months, Kim _fucking Taehyung._ ”

Taehyung knows he should probably call the nurses desk before Jimin says another word. He may be a tough man and an even stronger fighter, but there’s nothing like that storm Jimin’s got deep in his soul. 

That storm Taehyung was so swept up in, not so long ago. 

Taehyung doesn’t blame himself for how he feels. He hopes Jimin does. 

“Let us start with - oh, I don’t know - all of your recent life choices? How you left your job at the bank to work two jobs with less pay and longer hours? How you sold your car for a new apartment just to run away from our home? Or maybe I should bring up the fights you force yourself into. Sure, _fuck_. Let’s go with _that_.”

Taehyung closes his eyes. 

“Let’s start with how many people you’ve beaten to the ground because you’ve got a hard-on for feeling like a man. Let’s talk about how good you feel when you cut your skin on someone else’s teeth. Let’s talk about that rush you get when there’s no one in the room with more blood on the floor than you, Kim fucking Taehyung, let’s talk about it. Open your goddamn eyes!”

Taehyung opens his eyes. Jimin is standing near the foot of the bed with the veins of his neck bulging. The stress turning his knuckles white makes his voice shake, and the glimmering golden band is still on his ring finger. It burns Taehyung to see.

Lying there, still and staring evenly back at Jimin, Taehyung’s arm begins to itch. 

Odd.

“The least you could do is look at me, you asshole. That is the _least_ you could do for me right now.”

Jimin whips around and sets on the visitor’s seat with his back to Taehyung, building that wall between them. Taehyung is glad for it. The further Jimin is from Taehyung, the better off they both are. It will always be that way.

“Seokjin called me,” Jimin sobs, shedding tears he won’t allow Taehyung to see, “He called me hysterical over what happened. You started bleeding out of your face and just collapsed. No warnings, no signs. Only you, dead right there for all eyes to see. Everyone in that stupid café was screaming. Do you know what that did to me?”

 _Do you even realize how afraid I was?_ Jimin is asking.

 _Yes, yes I know_ , Taehyung wants to say. He says nothing. Some news reporter on the television talks about a serial murder in Panama and the children’s death toll from the earthquake in Japan. Each word grates on his ears. 

Death is always taking whom it must. There is no one who can escape the will of life, the unavoidable ending of death. 

Except you, little Taehyung.  
…Why is that?

Taehyung grabs the remote and turns off the television. Even with Jimin in the room, silence is welcomed.

“Seokjin was overreacting to a fever and so are you. I’m still here and plenty alive. I can’t afford all this anyways, Jimin, and you know it.”

“Yes I can.”

Taehyung tries his best to understand, but can’t. Jimin knows Taehyung would never allow him to pay for hospital bills. This is all Taehyung’s life, Taehyung’s burden and responsibility, no one else’s. Jimin would be a dreamer to think otherwise.

“And don’t you think for a second you’re getting out of this,” Jimin hisses, puffy red eyes accusing behind the finger pointed at Taehyung, “You’re still on my insurance policy. They accepted the policy when I told them you couldn’t afford it yourself, which you can’t. So balls up and get over yourself _baby_ , because I win this round.”

Goddamn, that fire still burns so hot. Taehyung can’t remember how he survived those flames.

It’s then that someone knocks on the door, three nurses coming in to check on his bleeding. The last thing Taehyung sees before succumbing to the anesthesia is the tear streaks on Jimin’s cheeks before he falls into the darkness.

Straight into the nightmares.

 

Sometimes Taehyung dreams.

Most of the time he can make sense of what he’s seeing. He dreams about his old job at the bank, and his favorite coworkers. He dreams about his old car and the way the passenger-side speaker would short out here and there, but he never got around to replacing it.

Other times Taehyung dreams of Jimin. Taehyung never gave much thought to it, but it’s always the same: Jimin with his sunlight blond hair and beautiful tan skin lying naked in Taehyung’s dorm, back in their college years. The Naruto blanket is pulled up to Jimin’s chest, his love-bitten neck completely bare. He looks so beautiful. 

Taehyung remembers this day well. It’s the morning after they first made love, after Jimin asked Taehyung to be his, officially. On the nightstand, the coffee cup with the words ‘Be Mine?’ written messily on the side still sits from the evening before, but Taehyung never notices it until after the dream is over.

In the moment, Jimin is all Taehyung can see. Nothing else matters.

It ends the same way. Taehyung crawls in bed, sliding under the blanket against Jimin’s warm skin. Then those deep brown, perfect eyes open and become Taehyung’s entire world. Jimin's hand reaches out to touch Taehyung’s chest, fingers pressing into the skin but still pulling him closer. Asking if he’s going to stay. Taehyung couldn’t escape if he tried.

Then Jimin says it, and the dream fades back into reality.

_Hey, handsome. Good morning. I love you._

Taehyung wakes up confessing, _I love you too._

Every time.

But there are other times when Taehyung doesn’t understand what he’s seeing, and since the accident those kinds of dreams happen more frequently. They happen after Taehyung gets into a fight. They happen after Taehyung has exhausted himself with work. 

It starts with him standing in an open field, the ground beneath his feet the same shades as the stars in the sky. What should be earth looks like waves of energy pulsing and swaying in the breeze. There are dozens of moons under his feet, above in the sky, and too many suns to count without burning his eyes. 

Silently, a stranger emerges from the space, standing in front of him covered in thick mists of foggy darkness. No matter how many suns in the sky, he’s never able to see their face. Still, he can see what happens after, and it unsettles him.

They ask with a quiet voice if he wants to go to war. He answers, no; he wants peace.

Hands take him by the shoulders, and he’s thrown to the ground before he can fight back. Taehyung doesn’t feel afraid, not when he’s held down, not when hands slide behind his knees and spread his thighs. 

He’s surrounded by darkness, and phantom pleasure burns inside him. It trickles hot through his chest down between his hips, and Taehyung sees the suns in the sky spiral into black holes. The body holding him down slides deliciously deep inside him, and the ground disappears. 

They fall through the empty space linked together, and white hot ecstasy takes Taehyung away.

 

When Taehyung leaves the hospital, he thinks about what he should do. What he needs to do.

He needs to find a way to repay Jimin, then make sure Jimin removes him from the insurance policy. He needs to hurry and get back to work, make up for the time he’s lost. He needs to shower and wash his bed sheets, because they will still smell of sickness and sweat. 

He doesn’t do any of that. He doesn’t want to do any of that. Not yet, at least. First, there’s something more important.

He finds a payphone and uses the last of the coins in his wallet to dial a number he hasn’t called in many long months. It rings and rings, and he wonders if he should hang up. The booth he's in is covered in graffiti, trashy and neglected. Seeing that, Taehyung can’t make himself move the receiver away from his ear. He hopes like a mad man that voice will answer.

He hasn’t heard his mother in so long. 

“Hello?”

Tears come to his eyes. Taehyung feels like he’s dying. He always has.

“ _Mom_.”

 

“You should have told me about your new apartment. And your new phone number. And that broken engagement,” his mother speeds like a taxi driver, swerving between lanes and going so fast cars move over when they see her coming, “A mother would like to know about how her son’s life is going, even if he doesn’t want her to know.”

Taehyung can’t refuse his mother anything when her eyes stare deep into his, when her voice demands his honesty. That reason kept him from staying connected with his mother, his guilt and his burdens too much already. He never wanted to be a burden to his mother.

“I’m sorry,” he’s slumped over in the passenger seat of her car, her winter coat around his shoulders. The hood smells faintly of her shampoo. Breathing in that comforting floral scent, Taehyung drifts off when she stops speaking. 

“You were in an accident, you quit your job, you sold your car, left all the shit you didn’t want at Jimin’s apartment and just decided to start fresh, yeah? Am I getting this right?”

Hearing it out loud is a whole new demon. Taehyung crosses his arms and cowers.

“So that’s a yes?” 

She’s never been one for bullshit. Taehyung has always been more like his father, mild and calm until provoked. When provoked, he’s a carbon copy of his mother, right down to the way she curses. Right now, he doesn’t want to be anything. 

“I did what I thought was best for me. I’m a selfish bastard, and I don’t care about anyone but myself. I had no consideration for the impact of my choices on others and paid no attention to the aftereffects that took place on me. I take responsibility for my wrongs, mom, but I’m not going to apologize for what I thought was best anymore.”

She just barely slides between a truck and a van. Someone blows their horn. She blares hers right back. 

“I didn’t ask you to explain yourself Tae, I just wanted to know the truth. You know you don’t have to apologize to anyone in this world if you haven’t hurt them, and you haven’t hurt me.”

“Thank you for driving all this way,” Taehyung mutters, “I hope I don’t bother you for too long, mom.”

A palm collides with Taehyung’s nose. Pain explodes from deep in his muscles and Taehyung doubles over, squealing in agony. Did she just deliberately smack the fuck out of him? Seriously?

“I would rather you stayed with me for the rest of your life! You’re my baby and I missed damn near all of your childhood because of work. Your grandmother never forgave me for that. If I could steal you away and keep you without having to kidnap you, I wouldn’t hesitate!”

Taehyung looks over at his mother, at her crazy eyes, her strong hands, and the slight chap on her lips. He thinks of the beginning of his life when she was always there and remembers when she was always gone. He thinks vacantly, I should hate her for all those empty years. 

But he doesn’t. He’s surprised to realize he’s forgiven her. Taehyung didn’t realize he had done that. 

He also doesn’t remember a time when he felt so out of place in his own skin, so wrong in a world that made no time for train-wrecks and walking corpses. “I’ll think about it,” he says, and allows his eyes to fall closed. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the storm clouds they’re driving straight for. 

His mother doesn’t answer, and Taehyung doesn’t need to look at her. He already knows what expression she wears. 

 

‘Thinking about it’ becomes moving in after three days back in Daegu. Three days away from the hellhole he spent years digging himself into.

He has nothing left in that sorry little town: only a broken love and the construction site where Taehyung should have died - both of which he has no problem leaving behind. Daegu has faces that don’t care what his name is, buildings that make him feel small enough to be human again. 

His mother couldn’t be happier about his decision, though she’s never been the type to jump and dance over things. She welcomes him in with grace and silence, baking his favorite cake and bringing his old guitar back out of the attic alongside a bottle of alcohol. Taehyung hasn’t touched an instrument since he left his grandmother for an accounting major at a small university. The strings welcome him home with soft voices. 

They set in the dining room choking down burning liquor while Taehyung plays, fingertips red, and sings off-key with his mother. He doesn’t know what song they’re singing, doesn't care anymore. All he cares about is the fact that this is the first time he’s felt free from the weight on his shoulders in over two years, and he doesn’t want it to end. He hopes it doesn't.

 

And like all other good things in life, Taehyung’s world falls out from beneath him after two weeks back in Daegu. 

He’s walking along the Nakdong river smiling at the rippling waters, contemplating when he should call his mother. He has to tell her he landed the job pushing invoices at the law firm a few blocks away from their home. The sun is setting low between the buildings, light shimmering over the water back into his eyes every so often. 

The air smells like the city in its purest form, a little hopeless and full of carbon monoxide, and Taehyung breathes it in deep. Someone, somewhere, once said there’s no place like home. Taehyung could get behind that. 

He finds a bench facing the riverside and sets down, eyes on the water while he listens to the buzzing noise of life surrounding him. As the sun sinks in the sky, he watches it behind his eyelids. The slight pink color changes slowly, becomes orange, then blue, then black and Taehyung opens his eyes again. Deep purple sets around the base of each building he sees, then it too disappears.

Darkness chases the day away. Taehyung should call his mother. 

The phone is in his hands; press two and click call. There's one person in this great big town that cares about anything he's done, and she's waiting for his call. No one else gives a fuck. Taehyung takes a relieved breath and presses two.

The phone rings. The line connects on the third monotonous drone.

“So, what’s the news? Did we get it?”

Did we? 

“We did.”

“Holy shit- that’s amazing, Tae! Fuck, I shouldn’t curse. Wait, let me get my slippers on. We'll celebrate! I’ll get my purse and pick you up, wait for me!”

Taehyung laughs and slouches into the bench, counting the tiny stars in the sky. He could deal with some celebration tonight.

“Maybe you should wear real shoes mom, not slippers. You never know when mister right might come along and sweep you off your feet.”

“Oh, to hell with the mister doesn’t-exist fairytale bullshit. You’re my little princeling. That’s enough royalty for me.”

A small noise echoes in the distance, and Taehyung laughs again. He’s no little prince. His mother should know that better than anyone else.

“I don’t think princes move back in with their moms when they can’t find a kingdom. Wouldn’t it be, I don’t know, heresy? Treason? Did they kick princes out if they didn’t-”

The noise in the distance grows, expands suddenly. Taehyung hears it in the same way a dog may hear someone ascending the stairs to their home. His voice fails. His eyes dilate. His mind focuses.

And his arm starts to itch.

The phone falls to the ground with a muted thump. His legs carry him before his eyes search for where he may be going, his expression so empty his face no longer looks like his own. The soft tap of his soles travelling the ground drifts brokenly into the receiver and if anyone were listening, they would hear a voice.

She sounds so, so afraid.

“Taehyung? Taehyung, oh god, please tell me you’re still here. Tae? You shouldn’t be able to hear- No, no please not my Taehyung. Not my boy, please not my-”

Nothing she says is important after that, and shortly the line is cut off. Her boy, Taehyung, couldn’t have heard her if her voice was screaming into his ear.

His arm is starting to hurt.

 

While drifting in a hazy state of mind, Taehyung remembers two things. The first is that he has heard this noise before. The second is that he does not remember who gave him the ring on his finger.

It’s simply always been there. Taehyung has never felt a substantial desire to take it off, therefore never has. Its imprint on his flesh has existed since he was a young boy and could notice that none of the other children had a ring like he did. When he asked his father of it, he said, “Ring? What ring? You aren’t wearing any rings, Taehyung.”

Yes I am, he wanted to yell. Mom would see it. Taehyung knew she would be able to see it. So he waited for her to come home again, but dad said she was still at work. She might not be home for a while. 

So long went by, Taehyung too forgot about the ring. He became so used to its constant weight it became another part of his finger, another part of his own skin. If no one can see it but him, then it’s his secret to keep. 

Then, there’s the noise. 

It’s a deep sound that can be overlooked if someone talks loud enough, but it still takes everyone at the table by surprise. No one notices all their eyes becoming withdrawn, their voices suddenly gone. It’s the noise they have all heard before, and will readily forget once someone speaks again. They forget because the noise does not bring any memories to the forefront of their minds, and when something does not make itself significant no one will consider it so. 

The only two in Daegu who remember this sound are miles apart, and only one of them has learned how to tune it out. 

Taehyung has not learned how to tune out the sound of machines growling, begging for a fight. He has not learned why he can hear it. He has not learned what will happen if he listens to it. 

He keeps walking. His arm is starting to throb.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter! @thatmcgrittle  
> i love feedback like i love bangtan because both of them turn my cheeks red


End file.
